Education has been a top priority for American citizens since the birth of the United States. Receiving a quality education is the key to success and the basis for generating opportunities. However, a large percentage of the U.S. population is uneducated, and many of those citizens are currently residing in state penitentiaries. 37% of state prison inmates do not have a high school diploma, compared to 19% of the general population. With the unprecedented rise of incarceration rates in the U.S., prisons have become overcrowded, which compromises the safety, management, and effectiveness of the facilities. Since the 1990s, the United States has incarcerated more people per capita than any other nation in the modern world.

Compared to nations such as Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the U.S.'s rates of incarceration have "...consistently been between four and eight times those for these other nations." Educational programs, primarily GED (General Education Development), post-secondary education, and vocational skills training, have been a component of U.S. correctional centers since the 1800s. Even though the necessity of educational programs in U.S. prisons has been called into question, they have demonstrated the ability to limit imprisonment's negative psychological effects.

Extensive scientific research on educational programs has proven them to promote the successful rehabilitation of criminal offenders into productive members of society, combating the psychological consequences of imprisonment. The positive psychological impacts of educational programs in state penitentiaries are improvements in prisoners' overall well-being, reduced recidivism (offenders return to criminal behavior post-release) and enhanced employability, which is beneficial to U.S. society.

Incarceration of criminal offenders can cause varying degrees of psychological damage, but the participation in correctional education programs limits the extent of harm. Not every prisoner is released from imprisonment with irreversible psychological problems, but most researchers conclude that prison does produce negative, long-lasting change.

According to an analysis of the psychological effects of incarceration on prisoners written by Chris Haney, a Psychology professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz with experience in criminal justice research, the most common form of mental change for offenders is a term known as "institutionalization", also referred to as "prisonization." The definition is "...the process by which inmates are shaped and transformed by the institutional environments in which they live," or the negative psychological effects of adaptation to imprisonment. Haney describes a number of changes in inmates behavior within his paper, including the dependence on institutional structure, social withdrawal/isolation, and post-traumatic stress reactions.

He explains how the psychological changes that take place within a prisoner during incarceration make it difficult for them to re-integrate themselves into the free world. The main objective of sentencing people who have committed crimes to incarceration is to reform and rehabilitate offenders into working citizens who can contribute to U.S. society. Chris Haney argues that while prisons have utilized a variety of correctional programs in order to reform offenders, educational programs are the most effective. Conclusively, prisoners participation in educational programs leads to a reduction in the psychological damage of incarceration, improvement in their overall level of well-being. The positive implications of prison educational programs are offenders' post-release adjustment into productive U.S. citizens.

In conclusion, the psychological implications of educational programs in U.S. prisons are that participants are prepared for re-integration into the free world, which decreases criminal activity, supporting the security and public safety of the nation. The implementation of educational programs in state penitentiaries results in increased employability of prisoners post-prison, as imprisonment has a certain psychological cost for offenders, and correctional education is the most viable option in preventing it. In order to solve our prison problem in the U.S., with money being spent to keep far too many people locked up, educational programs must be funded, which have been proven to end the cycle of imprisonment for so many people. This is by no means an easy problem to solve, but it is one that can be. The lives and futures of thousands of American citizens depend on it.